Marathon: Freedom or Death

silence him. ‘Listen — I’m not pissing on you. When we went after the Euboeans, I almost lost my whole phalanx. Why? Because I had no idea how fast the cavalry could come at me. Our servants still had our shields — Ares, it could have been a disaster.’ I shrugged. ‘And I’ve been at war since I was seventeen. Fighting the Persians is not like any other war. We have to roll with the punches and learn from mistakes, the way a good pankrationist does when he fights a bigger man. Eh?’

It was always rewarding to say something sensible and have men like Aristides give me that look, the look that indicated that in the main they thought me a mindless brute.

Demostocles looked stunned that I’d admitted to failing. It took the wind out of his sails and left him speechless. Concession and apology can be like that.

‘We need a concerted foraging strategy,’ I said. ‘Every taxis cannot go on its own. And I think we need to contest the plain with them — even if it costs us. We need to go down there and show them who owns those fields, man to man. If we let their cavalry ride where they please, eventually they will beat us. Or that’s how it seems to me.’

The polemarch gave me a long look, as if up until then he’d thought me a fool. Perhaps he had. I was, after all, Arimnestos the killer of men, not Arimnestos the tactician.

Miltiades came forward again. ‘I have a plan,’ he said. ‘I think we need to attack their cavalry, and put it out of the war.’

Many voices spoke up then, and not all of them were strategoi. The problem of the Greeks is that we all like to talk, and all the famous men came to the meetings of the strategoi, whether they held rank or not. Themistocles was a strategos but Sophanes was not, and he attended anyway. Cimon, Miltiades’ eldest, held no rank, and he was always there, and seemed to feel freer to speak than his father — on and on. So we had closer to a hundred men than eleven.

The many voices shouted Miltiades down. Leontus began urging a vote on returning to Athens. Of the hundred men standing there by the altar, the vast majority were with Leontus. What I couldn’t tell was how many of the strategoi were with Leontus and Demostocles.

But the voices calling for the vote were loudest.

Callimachus stepped forward and blew the horn at his hip, and the Athenians grew quieter.

‘We will vote on the idea of returning to the city,’ he said.

Uproar.

‘We will vote in the morning,’ he said. ‘This meeting is adjourned.’

Miltiades followed him as he walked away to his tent. A dozen other men went to follow them, and Aristides and I tried to stop them by forcing them to face us and debate the whole issue — we kept them there several minutes, and Miltiades was gone.

Somewhere in there, I caught Aristides’ eye. He gave a small shake of his head.

He thought we’d had it.

So did I.

I went straight back to my camp and found my brother-in-law and Idomeneus, and I took them off into our little stand of cypress trees.

‘If the army breaks up, we need to plan our own retreat,’ I said.

‘Ares’ dick!’ Idomeneus said. ‘You must be joking, lord. Or is it Lade again?’

I shook my head. ‘Aristides thinks they’ll vote to retreat to Athens in the morning, and there will be immediate desertions. He paints a bleak picture, lads.’ I shrugged. ‘We’re a long way from home. And if there is a traitor-’

Idomeneus shook his head. ‘We’re all right,’ he said. ‘Keep the archers safe, head for the hills and walk the high ground all the way home. Could take a while, but we’ll live.’

‘What do we eat, drink?’ I asked. His strategy was the one I liked, too — but it was fraught with danger.

‘Steal what we can — hunt when we can.’ Idomeneus shook his head. ‘It will suck, that’s for sure, lord. But the boys will get it done.’

Antigonus looked at the speaker’s bema in the middle of the encampment. ‘If what you say is really true,’ he said, ‘we should be gone in the morning.’

‘Then men will say we deserted,’ I said.

Antigonus shrugged. ‘Will we care? If these bastards run for Athens, the Persians will eat them, and someone in the city will sell it out just the way the Euboeans were sold. And the Ionians.’

‘And it won’t be a thetes,’ Idomeneus added. ‘I heard that bastard at your little meeting, lord. Chalcis was betrayed by an aristocrat.’

I nodded. ‘I heard that, too. Doesn’t matter, though. Antigonus, what’s your point?’

He frowned and looked at the ground. ‘It’s not a very glorious thought,’ he admitted, ‘but if Athens is going down, we don’t need to give a shit about what they think of us — our duty is to get our people home alive.’

It made sense. He was a good man, my brother-in-law.

‘If we cut and run before the Athenians break up,’ Idomeneus said with his terrible, callous practicality, ‘their cavalry will waste a day or two killing Athenians and we’ll never see them. Lord, it could save many men.’ Then he reverted to form. ‘Seems a horrible waste, though.’ He grinned.

‘Waste?’ I asked.

‘This should be the most glorious battle of our time,’ Idomeneus said. ‘If these fuckheads waste it, I’ll go and fight for Persia. I’ll never forgive them.’

‘Get the boys ready to march — without getting them ready to march. Tell them we might try a raid on their foragers tomorrow and they’ll be a day in the field.’ I was keeping my options open.

I went and walked through the camp — the whole camp.

It was like the camps of the East Greeks before Lade.

Worse, in a way, because at every fire, men urged others to go home. To cut and run. I thought they were cowards, and then I realized that, in effect, I’d just done the same.

Why can’t Greeks get along? Why can’t they maintain a common goal?

We lost Lade when the Samians sailed away and abandoned us — for the greed of a few men.

I saw Marathon going the same way, and I wanted to weep.

It was almost dark when Paramanos found me.

‘You move too fast,’ he said. ‘Miltiades wants you.’

That was like the old days. I knew what he would want. He’d want the Plataeans to join with his men — the professionals — in covering the retreat of the army. I’d already thought it through. I was about to tell my own lord — a man to whom I owed a great deal — to sod off. I wasn’t losing any Plataeans to save Athens.

That’s how bad things were that night.

Miltiades had a tent. Few men did in those days. Greece is kind to soldiers, and it seldom rains. But Miltiades had fought everywhere, and he had a magnifcent tent — another reason for men to hate him. If they needed a reason, of course.

I went in, and a slave handed me a big cup of wine.

Miltiades was wearing a simple dark chiton and had boots on.

‘I need you and twenty of your best men,’ he said.

That caught me by surprise. ‘What for?’ I asked.

‘We’re going to raid the Persian camp,’ he said. ‘It’s the only hope we have. I convinced Callimachus to put of the vote until tomorrow night. He fears treason in the city just as much as I do. He’s not a fool. He’s just cautious.’ Miltiades drank some wine. ‘Listen — Phidippides the herald just came in from the mountains. The Spartans haven’t marched yet. It’ll be five days — at least — before we can expect them. But they are coming.’

Aristides came in through the beaded door. He was wearing plain leather armour. ‘They want us to die,’ he said.

Miltiades shrugged. ‘They’re pious men, our Lacedaemonian friends. They have a festival.’ He shrugged. ‘To be honest, I doubt I’d hurry to save Sparta from the Medes, either. But when Phidippides’ news is known, the last heart will go out of the army. Five days is too long. We have to strike.’

‘I’m ready,’ Aristides said.